Online agent Emoov agreed to take down a claim that sellers could “save thousands” with it after a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority.
The complainant challenged whether the claim “save thousands with Emoov” was misleading and could be substantiated.
The matter was informally resolved after Emoov agreed to make changes to its advert.
Emoov charges a fixed fee of £895 outside London, and £995 inside the M25.
Yesterday on the Emoov site the main message read: “Be vigilant: The average home seller in Britain pays £3,008 in high street Estate Agency commission . . . that’s Daylight Robbery”.
Comments (19)
OKAAAYYY…
The @ASA_UK wristie-slap relates to adverts from months ago.
For instance, on 4 March, the eMoov landing page stated
“JOIN THE THOUSANDS, SAVING THOUSANDS”
Which is probably the offending statement. It takes @ASA_UKs complaints process longer to turn round than an oil-tanker, so what happened six months ago is what you are seeing now.
But this follows nicely on from last week’s article:
https://www.propertyindustryeye.com/so-where-in-the-country-are-estate-agents-charging-4-anyone-know/
Despite having been consigned back to the naughty step for another minute of reflection on their behaviour from way back when, eMoov are clearly stepping up the action – just with a whole new set of words for the @ASA_UK to look forward to a glut of complaints about – namely their “Daylight Robbery” campaign of marketing *********** (credit: Jonnie).
The “Daylight Robbery” that eMoov (read “The Quirkster” – it’ll be his name on the correspondence…) seems to refer to “the average” property and “the average” fee charged.
The teeny-weeny disclaimer at the bottom of the webpage confirms that by stating (blown up to readable size, of course…)
“*The average high street Estate Agent commission in Britain is £3,008, calculated at 1.3% (average rate according to data from Myhomemove, 2015), paid on the average property price of £231,352 (Land Registry, June 2018). Sellers could be saving 70% by instructing Emoov with a £895 Fixed Fee Saver package (excludes London and inner M25).”
But… and it’s a mahoosive BUT… this is where we take the statistics and do a “banana up the tailpipe” job on The Quirkster and his merry band of eMoovers.
Stuff “averages”. HE DID, when he said “Shared ownership sales at £35k with minimum fee of £1500 is 4%+”
The “average” price of £231352 Mr Quirk refers to above is 6.6x the “£35k” property he used as an example in the same sentence.
The £1500 fee he quoted is 1.68x eMoov’s MINIMUM “fixed fee saver package” – NSPR – charge (£895)…
…1.26x the above package with viewings add-on (1195)…
…75% of the MINIMUM charge for NSNF (1995)…
..65% of the above with viewings (£2295)
And let’s not even step inside the M25 to compare.
Now – by my reckoning, taking the “average” ‘x’ and the “average” ‘y’ that eMoov wish to rely on as justification for this latest advertising bash-at-the-competition, you get this:
The selling fee for a property of £35000, based upon the “average” fee percentage of 1.3% (credit: eMoov), is £455.
SO… can it not therefore be said that FOR A PROPERTY NEARLY SEVEN TIMES CHEAPER THAN THE “AVERAGE”, eMoov WILL CHARGE UP TO FIVE TIMES MORE THAN THE AVERAGE ESTATE AGENT’S CALCULATED PERCENTAGE FEE.
And as for the property that eMoov are currently marketing in NE5 at an Asking Price of only £25,000…
…you do the maths.
Is it just me – or do I sense an “informal Resolution” to follow…?
The “daylight robbery” page and advert is still live on the emoov website
https://www.emoov.co.uk/daylight-robbery/
Do these guys need me to add some extra funding? I could share my investment in doorsteps but that would mean they get 75p each.
Who would of thought all this investment in on line estate agents would be soo expensive.
Still the high street is dying and on line is the way forward and I cant retire for another 10 years so I want my investment (of £1.50) to really work for me.
Interesting developments on Google Pay Per Click for the term ‘online estate agents’.
Emoov are the first listing and PB are no nowhere to be seen.
The relevance?
At £3-£5 every time someone clicks the ad PPC is almost certainly the most expensive way for onliners to generate instructions.
PB were all over PPC like a rash but the fact they aren’t now clearly shows that their TV campaigns, 22000 sales boards and resultant name awareness make PPC redundant.
Not so for Emoov.
Being so reliant on PPC shows how poorly Emoov’s other marketing activities and name awareness are.
Not a good sign Mr Quirk.
Following this, I gave it a try. E do indeed come top of the page on the paid listings.
Which? come first of the non-paid for listings.
Pb don’t feature until a paid for ad on the bottom of the page.
So how much are emoov’s instructions subsidised by investors money? How many instructions in total have they had, and how much investment have they had so far?
What is the average amount received by them (fee and investor subsidy) per achieved completed sale? Easy enough to work out……total fees and investment received up until the end of February this year, divided by the number of completed sales completed by them up to that period (nearly every sale should complete inside six months).
That is the true cost of what they actually charge! If I had investors paying me over £1,000 everytime I had a new instruction, then my fee per completed sale would be less than £1,000!!!
Well let’s look at it his way since Feb 2015 when Bricks first exceeded Emoov;s instructions 1670 to Emoov’s 1484 ,Having had a head start On Bricks they have undertaken a number of further capital raises with £9m in August 2017
Jul 3, 2018
Equity Crowdfunding – eMoov
—
£1.9M
—
Aug 21, 2017
Series B – eMoov
6
£9M
YYX Capital
Dec 31, 2016
Angel Round – eMoov
—
£50K
—
Oct 1, 2015
Equity Crowdfunding – eMoov
3
£2.6M
—
Jan 19, 2015
Seed Round – eMoov
1
£1.5M
Episode 1
Sep 18, 2014
Seed Round – eMoov
2
$3.2M
Episode 1
Jun 1, 2013
Venture Round – eMoov
Despite this their growth has been pedestrian whilst Bricks has been spectacular increasing the distance to a yawning gap.
So if that is £18 million Ish in total, and they have completed less than 18,000 sales, each sale has been subsidised by over £1,000.
The truth of the matter is even with all his media shows and hobnobbing the well to do’s, Quirky cant cant the investment required to push Emoov forward. It mus gall him significantly when PB got the £125m from the germans
I wonder with PB share price suffering if Quirky and the gang are still optimistic about floating next year. With vendors currently finding Emoov and Tepilo as a great way to flush their money down the toilet, i wonder if investors will continue to do the same.
Well Emoov currently have 2579 live sales listings according to Zoopla. This is well short ot Yopa battling for No 2 spot behind Bricks with 5626 Even adding In Tepilo;s 2330 and Urban .co.uk 20 sales too Emoov still behind Yopa on sales instructions
Bricks with 21,798 are a country mile ahead of the opposition
Must be hard work for some of the Experts often having to hold down 2 jobs Henry now Emoov’s expert for London having worked at HouseSimple has combined this with his role at New York habitat
https://www.linkedin.com/in/henry-row-27689921/?originalSubdomain=uk
As the LPE are self-employed, there is nothing stopping them working for more than one brand.
It should mean that they are more local, and if you take the view that they are working for the client (as opposed to PB/Emoov/Yopa/HS), then this could be the way that the OA naturally evolves.
Interesting to know if the likes of PB permit this – not sure they can prevent it from happening?
I would imagine it is stipulated under the licencing terms that the LPEs operate that you cannot represent a competitive business
Agreed that is probably the case. But is it enforceable under HMRC definition of employment?
The OA may have to accept that this is the only way they can operate in the future.
They could find themselves competing to get the LPE to recommend their brand ?
Where is the EDIT facility?
Just to add – if Traditional Agents got together via RICS/NAEA and NTSEAT we could probably force the HMRC issue and get a ruling that LPEs are self-employed IF they work for more than one OA.
That would be interesting to watch !
Not wanting to sound defeatist, but with getting official bodies/organisations to take action, is they have no interest. If our so called trade bodies, government authorities dont give a damn that certain companies constantly push the boundaries of what is acceptable, i cant see HMRC giving a damn either.
In that case, maybe the LPEs will force the issue – or the minor brands might start to tolerate/encourage LPEs to work for more than one OA.
A disgruntled LPE could argue that they were really employed, as the licencing agreement was a restraint of trade.
It would be tricky for Quirke if an Emoov LPE decided to work for Tepilo as well – perhaps they already do?
At some point a disgruntled LPE is going to go off on long term sick/ mat leave/ get “sacked” and test their employment status in court as has happened with Pimlico Plumbing, UBER, Deliveroo etc etc which will be interesting.